Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Saturday, July 22, 2006 at 04:54:13 :
Point Reyes Light
June 13, 2002
Pt. Reyes' Charles Klaas dies; worked for Time, IJ
By Larken Bradley
Point Reyes Station resident Charles S. Klaas, Sr., a retired Time magazine executive and former West Marin distributor of the Marin Independent Journal, died June 6 of congestive heart failure, five days after his 90th birthday.
Mr. Klaas, a 16-year resident of Walnut Place senior housing, was nicknamed "Ernest Hemingway" because of his white beard and resemblance to the famous author.
Beginning in the early 1960s, when the Marin Independent Journal was still privately owned, Mr. Klaas worked until his retirement as the paper’s West Marin distribution manager and was popular amongst the paperboys and papergirls.
"Lots of people in West Marin threw papers for him," including the sons of The Light’s circulation manager, Missy Patterson, his son Steve Klaas of Petaluma said.
Mr. Klaas was very content with his life in Inverness, said his daughter Denise Balestrieri of Walnut Creek. He told her "from the newsstand to a paper route in West Marin... is like retiring to God’s country," she said.
Pennsylvania native
Born in Avalon, Pennsylvania – a suburb of Pittsburgh – on June 1, 1912, Mr. Klaas was the youngest of four children and the family’s only boy. His father worked as fitter with US Steel, where one of his sisters later became an executive.
While still a teenager Mr. Klaas met June Heisch, his wife-to-be, at a local swimming pool. After graduation he took a job in Pittsburgh delivering ice to earn enough money to buy her an engagement ring. At the time of Mrs. Klaas’s death in 1992, the two had been married for more than 55 years.
Shortly after they were wed Mr. and Mrs. Klaas moved to Chicago, where he joined Time, which was operated by its co-founder and renowned editor-in-chief Henry Luce. As part of the company’s management team, Mr. Klaas helped develop an innovative distribution system for the organization’s periodicals which included Life and Fortune magazines.
News correspondent
During World War II, Mr. Klaas was drafted into the US Army, where he was called to serve as a news correspondent. Some young recruits who were employed by news agencies were granted deferments, and he was exempt from enlisting.
After taking an early retirement from Time, Inc., where his managerial duties included public relations and recruiting on college campuses, Mr. Klaas and his family moved to Connecticut, where he launched a small magazine serving private industry.
Subsequent career ventures in the publishing industry brought the family to Marin County, where he eventually went to work for the Marin Independent Journal.
A verbal and expressive man, Mr. Klaas possessed the personality of a natural salesman and had a talent for making conversation with almost anyone.
If someone was going to mug him for pocket change, he could talk them out of it and buy them a beer, explained his son.
‘Was never wrong’
A passionate wordsmith, Mr. Klaas routinely beat family and friends in dictionary games. "He was almost never wrong," said his daughter.
"His favorite word was ‘equanimity’," recalled his daughter-in-law, Norma Klaas.
Equanimity prevailed on the links when as a young man Mr. Klaas twice made a hole-in-one on golf courses in Illinois. Along with his career with Time, Inc., his golf feats remained his proudest accomplishments, said his son.
An automobile buff, he had a great eye for speed and style, said his daughter. In decades past Mr. Klaas owned a series of Hudsons, and in time acquired an executive-gray Cadillac with monstrous fins, she recalled.
Time in Pt. Reyes
Several years after his wife’s death and his move to Walnut Place, Mr. Klaas made friends with fellow resident, Leora Enders. Both were widowed, the same age, and from the same Pennsylvania town. The two became dinner companions, then sweethearts.
He told us she was an angel brought to him, said his daughter-in-law.
Mrs. Enders on Monday recalled Mr. Klaas’s devotion to old movies, especially Humphrey Bogart’s performance in Casablanca.
"He liked to imitate Clark Gable," echoed his daughter-in-law, especially the character Rhett Butler’s notorious line from Gone With the Wind, "‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.’"
Mr. Klaas is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Steve and Norma Klaas of Petaluma; daughter, Denise Balestrieri of Walnut Creek; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. A third great-grandchild is on the way.
A memorial service will be held Friday, June 21, at Walnut Place in Point Reyes Station.
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